The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fifth Lecture

[ 1 ] I have spoken to you about the three encounters that the human soul undergoes in the course of its life between birth and death, and which, even during the course of this life between birth and death, connect it with the spiritual worlds. Today we will return to this subject—which we touched on briefly last time, as it were, from the outside—and examine it in greater detail.

[ 2 ] We have observed that during the period when a person is subject to the alternating states of sleep and wakefulness, they have an encounter—usually in the middle of their sleep. I say “usually” because this is supposed to be the state of sleep that corresponds to the normal nighttime state. So, as a rule, between falling asleep and waking up, a person has an encounter with the world to which our spiritual self is related—the world into which we send the beings from that class of hierarchies we call the Angeloi. Thus, every time we pass through sleep, we pass through that world in which these beings dwell; through that world which is the next one—ascending—to our physical world, and we refresh and strengthen, so to speak, our entire spiritual being through this encounter. Because this is the case—because the state of sleep involves a relationship between the human being and the spiritual world—a purely materialistic explanation of the state of sleep, such as that attempted by conventional science, will never be able to satisfy us in any way. One can explain much of what takes place within a person based on the changes the body undergoes from waking to falling asleep, and one might then attempt to explain sleep through these changes; yet there will always remain something unsatisfactory about this approach, because sleep is precisely about the encounter described above—that is, a relationship between the human being and the spiritual world. Precisely when we consider the state of sleep, we can see how a person, if they do not seek a connection in their consciousness to the spiritual world, arrives at half-truths—those half-truths which, since concepts and ideas are translated into life, distort life and ultimately, in truth, bring about the great catastrophes of life.

[ 3 ] Half-true concepts! In a certain sense, they are actually worse than completely false concepts, because people who form half-true concepts and half-true ideas insist on these half-true ideas—after all, they can prove them; since they are half-true, they can be proven. Nor will a refutation make sense to them, since the concepts are, after all, half-true. Such concepts actually distort life even more than the completely false ones, whose falsity is immediately apparent and acknowledged. One such half-true idea is the one that has been partly abandoned by external science today, but is still partly—and to a large extent—upheld by that same external science. It is the notion to which I have already drawn attention on several occasions: that we sleep because we are tired. It is, we can truly say, a half-true notion, and it is supported by a half-true observation that people invoke: that the activities of the day tire the body, and that one must therefore sleep because one is tired. Now, I have already pointed out in earlier lectures that this explanation of sleep could never account for why rentiers, who have not worked at all, often fall asleep immediately upon hearing this or that—even in the face of the most stimulating things coming from the outside world. It is certainly impossible to prove that they are tired; and the idea that they absolutely must sleep because they are so worn out is simply a false—that is, a half-true—observation. We humans, precisely when we believe that fatigue is forcing us to sleep, observe only half the picture. And one sees what this incompleteness consists of only when one compares what is observed from one side with what can be observed from the other side, where one encounters the other half of the picture. You will soon see what I mean by this.

[ 4 ] In the life of each individual human being, sleep and wakefulness alternate rhythmically. However, human beings are creatures endowed with freedom, and can therefore intervene in the rhythm of sleep and wakefulness—in this case, more through circumstances than through what is called freedom, but these circumstances are precisely the foundation of freedom—they can intervene in the course of events, and sometimes are only too happy to intervene in the rhythm of sleep and wakefulness. Another rhythm that we have often associated with sleep and wakefulness—even if this association is mistaken in ordinary consciousness—is the one that occurs in the course of the year: the alternation of summer and winter, if we disregard the transitional seasons. No one would think to say: “Well, during the summer the Earth exerts itself and unleashes the forces that cause plants to grow—forces that lead to many other things as well; then it grows weary, and a winter rest must therefore set in.” — Everyone would reject such an idea as absurd and say: “The onset of winter has nothing at all to do with the Earth’s summer exertion; rather, it occurs simply because the Sun assumes a different spatial relationship to the spot on Earth where winter is just setting in.” — People will attribute everything to external factors; when it comes to sleeping and waking, they’ll attribute everything to fatigue, to internal factors. Now, one view is just as false as the other—or one could also say that one is just as half-true as the other. For the rhythm of sleeping and waking is precisely the same kind of rhythm as that between winter and summer. It is just as untrue that we sleep merely because we are tired as it is true that winter sets in because the earth has worked itself to the bone during the summer; rather, both are based on the independent action of a rhythm brought about by certain conditions. The rhythm between sleeping and waking is brought about precisely because the human soul needs to bring about the encounter with the spiritual world again and again—because it needs this encounter with the spiritual world time and again. And if we were to say that we want to sleep, and that is why we feel fatigue, or if we were to say that we are entering the stage where we long for one part of the rhythm—the state of sleep—and that is why we feel fatigue, then we would be stating something more accurate than: “Because we are tired, we must sleep.”

[ 5 ] The matter will become even clearer to us if we simply ask: Yes, what does the soul actually do when it sleeps? Today’s spiritless science has neither a proper understanding nor a proper way to answer such a question. You see, when we are awake, we take pleasure—for pleasure is always present throughout life—we take pleasure in the external world. We do not merely enjoy the external world when we taste a delicious meal—where we use the word “enjoy” because the experience has such a profound effect—but rather, we enjoy the external world throughout our entire waking state, and all of life is, at the same time, enjoyment. If there is much displeasure in the world and this does not seem to be enjoyment, that is merely an illusion, which we will discuss in a later context in upcoming lectures. While awake, we enjoy the external world; while asleep, we enjoy ourselves. Just as we enjoy the external world through the body when our soul is within the body, so too do we enjoy our own body when our soul is outside the body; for during the life between birth and death, we remain connected to the body, even when outside of it. This is essentially what the state of sleep consists of—the ordinary, normal state of sleep—that we immerse ourselves in our body, that we enjoy our body. We enjoy our body from the outside. And the dreams—the ordinary, chaotic dreams—will be correctly interpreted by those who tell themselves that they are a reflection of the enjoyment of the body that a person experiences when in dreamless sleep.

[ 6 ] This explanation of sleep comes closer to the need for sleep that I mentioned in connection with the reindeer. For while we might not readily believe that it is tired, we can easily believe—especially in the case of the reindeer—that it loves its body so much that it would rather enjoy it than whatever the outside world often has to offer. After all, it generally loves itself so infinitely and takes such pleasure in itself—perhaps it enjoys itself far more than, not to say, a lecture it listens to out of a sense of duty, but perhaps, to put it another way, some more difficult, more sophisticated piece of music, to which it immediately falls asleep when it is supposed to listen to it. Sleep is self-indulgence. But because, in sleep—in normal sleep—we encounter the spiritual world, this sleep is not merely self-indulgence but also self-understanding; to a certain degree, self-understanding and self-perception. In this regard, it is indeed essential for our spiritual development that people learn to understand that they truly submerge themselves in the spirit during normal sleep and, upon waking, emerge again from the spirit; that they learn to have reverence for this encounter with the spirit.

[ 7 ] Well, so as not to leave anything out, I would like to return once more to the so-called “puzzle of fatigue.” For this is where trivial consciousness will find it easiest to latch on. It will say: Well, but we do experience that we are tired, and with fatigue comes the need for sleep.” — This is a point where one really must make a precise distinction. We do indeed become tired during the day’s work, and while we sleep, we are able to dispel that fatigue. So this part of the matter is true: We are able to dispel fatigue through sleep. But sleep does not consist in being merely an effect of fatigue; rather, it consists in enjoying oneself. And in this self-enjoyment, a person regains the strength through which they can dispel the fatigue that has set in. So to that extent, it is true that sleep can dispel fatigue. But it does not follow from this that every instance of sleep dispels fatigue; it is true that all sleep is self-enjoyment, but it is not true that all sleep eliminates fatigue. For the person who sleeps unnecessarily—who falls asleep at every opportunity and sleeps unnecessarily—may very well engage in a kind of sleep in which no fatigue is eliminated, in which there is merely self-enjoyment. Through such sleep—because one is accustomed, from normal life, to relieving fatigue through sleep—one will, through such sleep, continually strive to relieve fatigue as well. But if fatigue is not present—as is the case with the idler who falls asleep during a concert—he will merely go about his business, just as one otherwise does when trying to dispel fatigue. But since there is no fatigue, it will be a futile effort, and the result will be that it breeds all sorts of secondary conditions in its body. That is why such sleeping reindeer are particularly plagued by all sorts of things that are collectively referred to as neurasthenia—or whatever else they are called, those lovely terms.

[ 8 ] It is, after all, conceivable—through the connection with spiritual science—that a person might experience a state in which they are aware: You live in a rhythm that alternately brings you into the physical world and into the spiritual world. In the physical world, you encounter external physical nature; in the spiritual world, you encounter the beings who live in the spiritual world.

[ 9 ] Now we will fully understand the matter if we delve a little deeper into the whole nature of the human being from a certain perspective. You see, in the external science known as biology, the human being is usually regarded as a single unit and is roughly divided into the head, the chest, and the lower abdomen, along with the limbs attached to them. In those ancient times, when people still possessed atavistic knowledge, they already associated more concepts with this division, with this structure of the human being. The great Plato, the Greek philosopher, assigns wisdom to the head, courage to the chest, and to the lower abdomen he assigns what are the basest impulses of human nature. And that which is assigned to the chest region can be ennobled when wisdom unites with the courage associated with the chest region, transforming it into wise courage, into wise activity. And that which is to be regarded as the lower part of the human being, that which is attached to the lower abdomen—when it is permeated by wisdom, Plato calls it prudence. So here we can already see how the soul is structured and related to the various parts of the body. Today, with spiritual science—which was not yet accessible to Plato in the same way—we can speak about these things much more precisely.

[ 10 ] When we speak of the whole human being, we are speaking first—if we begin at the top in the fourfold nature of the human being—of the “I.” Everything that the human being considers to be his or her own in the soul and spirit acts within his or her physical existence between birth and death through the instruments of the physical body. We can ask ourselves with regard to each member of the human being: Through which parts of the physical body does the member in question act? And through thorough spiritual observation, it becomes clear to us that what we call the human “I” is in fact—as the human being exists between birth and death—bound—as grotesque as it may sound, but truths are usually different from what trivial consciousness imagines—physically bound to what we call the lower abdomen. For this “I,” as I have often said, is, in relation to human nature, the baby. The physical body received its rudiments as early as the ancient Saturn era, the etheric body in the ancient Sun era, the astral body in the ancient Moon era, and the “I” only during the Earth era. It is the youngest of the members of the human being. It will not reach the stage that the physical body now occupies during the Earth Age until the future Vulcan Age. The “I” is bound to the lowest physical aspect of the human being, and this lowest physical aspect is, in fact, constantly asleep. It is not organized in such a way that it brings what takes place within it up into consciousness. What happens in the lower physicality of the human being is subject to sleep even in the ordinary waking state. Our “I”—in its truth, in its real essence—comes to our consciousness just as little as the processes of our digestion do. What comes to our consciousness as the “I” is the reflex image, the mirror image, that is projected into our head. We never actually perceive our “I,” neither in sleep—where we are generally unconscious in the normal state—nor while awake, for the “I” also sleeps while we are awake. The real “I” does not enter into consciousness; rather, only the concept, the idea of the “I,” is reflected upward. In contrast, during the period from falling asleep to waking up, this “I” truly comes to itself; however, a person in normal deep sleep will know nothing of this, because they are still unconscious during their earthly existence in this deep sleep. This “I” is therefore, in essence, bound to the lowest physicality of the human being—from within during the day, while awake, and from without during sleep.

[ 11 ] If we now turn to the second aspect of human nature—what we call the astral body—we find that, in terms of the instruments through which it acts, this astral body is, from a certain point of view, connected to the chest region of the human being. And, strictly speaking, we can really only dream of what takes place in this astral body and works through the chest region. As earthly human beings, we can only perceive the “I” while asleep—that is to say, we do not consciously perceive it at all. We can dream of what the astral body is doing within us. That is why, in essence, we are constantly dreaming about our feelings, about what lives within us as sensations. These do indeed lead a dreamlike existence within us. Thus, the human ego lies outside the realm that we humans encompass with our ordinary sensory consciousness, for the ego is perpetually asleep. The astral body, too, stands to a certain extent outside the realm of what we perceive with our sensory consciousness, for it can only dream. With both of them, then, we are essentially always—whether we are awake or asleep—inside the spiritual world, truly inside the spiritual world.

[ 12 ] But what we call the etheric body is, in terms of its physicality, bound to the head. And this is what can remain constantly awake within us, first and foremost, through the head’s unique organization—or rather, can remain constantly awake when it is within the body, that is, when it is connected to the physicality of the head. So that we can say: The “I” is connected to the lowest parts of our body, and the astral body to our chest region. The heart, of whose processes we have not full consciousness but only a continuous dream-like awareness, beats and pulses under the influence of our astral body. When the head thinks, it thinks under the influence of the etheric body. And then we can also distinguish the entire physical body, the synthesis of everything; this is connected to the entire external world.

[ 13 ] Now you see a curious connection: the ego is bound to the lower parts of the body, the astral body to the heart region, the etheric body to the head region, and the physical body to the entire external world, to the surroundings. This entire physical body is, in fact, constantly in relation to the external environment while we are awake. Just as we relate to the external environment with our entire body, so too is our etheric body connected to our head, the astral body to the heart, and so on. From this, however, you will recognize how—I would say—truly mysterious the relationships are in which human beings live in the world. In reality, things are actually the exact opposite of what we might easily believe in our everyday consciousness. It is precisely the lowest members of human nature that are still imperfectly developed aspects of the human being today; therefore, as members of the body, they correspond to what we have called the baby: the “I.”

[ 14 ] Countless mysteries of human life are hidden in what I have said here—countless mysteries. Above all, if you delve into this whole matter, you will understand how the entire human being is formed out of the spirit—though, I would say, at different stages. The head of the human being is formed out of the spirit, but it is more pronounced; it has a later stage of formation than the chest, of which we can indeed say that it is just as much a metamorphosis for the head as the leaf is a metamorphosis for the flower, in the sense of Goethe’s theory of metamorphosis. And if we consider the rhythm between sleep and wakefulness from this perspective, then we will say: During wakefulness, the “I” is indeed present in all the activities of the human body—which are the lowest activities—culminating ultimately in the production of blood. The “I” is present in these activities during wakefulness. These are the bodily activities that, so to speak, stand at the lowest level of spirituality, for everything physical is, after all, also spiritual; but what we are now speaking of stands at the lowest level of spirituality. But precisely because the “I” stands at the lowest level of spirituality while awake, it stands—please take note of this!—at the highest level of spirituality in relation to the human being during sleep. For consider the following: When we look at the head, as we carry it upon ourselves as human beings, it is, in terms of its external form, what most clearly reveals the spirit. The head is the most perfect image of the spirit, the greatest revelation of the spirit; the spirit has penetrated matter to the greatest extent. Consequently, however, it has left the least behind in the spirit itself. Because human beings have devoted so much effort to the head in order to reveal the outer physical form in a spiritualized way, little has remained in the spirit itself. Since, in the lower parts of the human physical body, that which has taken shape outwardly is the least spiritualized—the least elaborated in a spiritual sense—the most has remained in the spiritual realm with regard to these lower parts. The head, as the head, corresponds to the least amount of the spiritual, because it contains the most Spirit within itself; the lower abdomen corresponds to the most Spirit, because it contains the least within itself. But within this greatest abundance of Spirit, which does not dwell in physicality, the “I” dwells during sleep.

[ 15 ] Consider this wonderful balance: While human beings have a lower nature with regard to their physicality, and the “I” immerses itself in this lower nature upon waking, this lower nature is only lower because the spirit has worked the least, because the spirit has held back so much in the spiritual realm. But in what the spirit has held back, the “I” is present during sleep. Thus, during sleep, the “I” is already united with that which the human being will only develop at a later time, that which the human being will only bring to maturity and unfold in the future—that which is still only faintly, I might say merely hinted at, and still scarcely developed in the human being’s physical nature. Therefore, if the “I” becomes conscious of the state in which it finds itself during sleep—if it truly becomes conscious of this state—then it can say to itself: During sleep, I am within that which is my most sacred human disposition. And as I emerge from sleep, as I wake up, I pass from the world of my most sacred predispositions into that which today is only a faint hint of this most sacred predisposition.

[ 16 ] Yes, such things must take root in our feelings and our sensibilities through spiritual science. Then life itself will be spiritualized by a magical breath of holiness. And then we will associate a definite, positive concept with what is called the grace of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. Then we will connect the following idea with this total human existence, which unfolds in the rhythm between sleeping and waking: You may participate in the spiritual world; you may be within it. — And once we have truly felt this concept, this idea—that “you may be present in the spiritual world; you are blessed by being permeated by the spiritual world, which is inaccessible to you through your ordinary earthly consciousness”—once we have truly grasped this, then we have also learned to look up to the Spirit who reveals Himself to us, I might say, between the lines of life, and who reveals Himself to us there just as much as external nature reveals itself to us through our physical eyes and ears. But the materialistic age has distanced human beings in their consciousness from the grace of the Spirit, which otherwise would illuminate and permeate their entire existence. That this be regained is of such immense importance. For more than one might think, the depths of our soul in our age feel the general materialism of our time; it is just that the human soul in this age is, as a rule, far too weak to awaken within itself those ideas that lead beyond materialism. But this would be one such idea: that of the sacredness of sleep. For once we have understood this sacredness of sleep, we will also attribute everything that comes to us in waking life—thoughts and ideas that do not bind us to matter—to the influence of the spirit that takes place during sleep. We then see, so to speak, not only in our waking state—which connects us to matter—what is important for us as human beings—which would be just as if we regarded only winter as important for the Earth—but we see the whole. For the Earth, we see the whole when we consider winter in connection with summer; for human beings, we see the whole when we consider the day—that is, the connection with matter—in connection with sleep, that is, the connection with the spirit.

[ 17 ] Now, at first glance, one might say: So while a person is awake, they are connected to matter and therefore cannot know anything about the spirit; but they do know something about the spirit while they are awake! — Well, a person has a memory, and this memory operates not only in the conscious mind but also in the subconscious. If we had no memory, then all our sleep would be of no use to us. And this is something very important; I ask you to take it to heart—then all our sleep would be of no use to us. For then, without memory, we would inevitably be led to that creed which states: There is nothing other than material existence. It is only because we retain in our subconscious the memory of what we experience during sleep—even if we are unaware of it in our conscious mind—that we do not think purely materialistically at all. If a person does not think merely materialistically—if they have spiritual ideas at all during the day—this stems from the fact that their memory is at work. For as human beings are now, as earthly beings, they come into contact with the spirit only during sleep.

[ 18 ] The point is that if we could develop such a strong awareness of what happens to us during sleep—as people in ancient times were able to do for certain states— then we would not even think of doubting the spirit; rather, we would remember—not only subconsciously but also consciously—what we encountered in sleep. If a person consciously experienced what they experience in sleep, it would be just as absurd to deny the spirit as it would be for a waking person to deny the existence of tables and chairs. The point now is for humanity to once again come to truly and correctly assess its encounter with the spirit in sleep. It can do this only by strengthening its waking concepts sufficiently for this purpose; and this is achieved through deepening one’s understanding of spiritual science. In spiritual science, we deal with concepts drawn from the spiritual world. We strain our minds—that is, the etheric body within our heads—to imagine things that have nothing to do with external materiality, things that are real only in the spiritual world. This requires a greater effort than imagining things that are real in the material world. And that is, in fact, the real reason why people do not engage with spiritual science. They come up with all sorts of excuses against spiritual science. They say it is not logical. If they were asked to prove that it is illogical, they would falter; for the illogicality of spiritual science cannot be proven. But the rejection of spiritual science, the failure to acknowledge spiritual science, is based on something entirely different; it is based—I don’t know if one is allowed to be impolite when it comes merely to scientific debates—simply on spiritual laziness. And no matter how diligent certain scholars may be with regard to all the concepts relating to external materiality, with regard to the effort one must exert to grasp the spirit, they are simply lazy and sluggish. And it is precisely because they are unwilling to muster the strength to grasp the spirit that they do not recognize spiritual science. For it simply takes more strength to think the concepts of spiritual science than to think the ordinary, material-bound concepts. Ordinary, material-bound concepts actually arise of their own accord; concepts that are not bound to matter, however, must be thought—one must rouse oneself to do so, one must exert oneself. And this aversion to spiritual science is rooted in this reluctance to exert oneself. This is something one must take into account. But by making the effort to take in such ideas that are not bound to matter and to think them through, one sets the soul in motion to such an extent that it will gradually come to truly develop an awareness of what takes place between falling asleep and waking up: that an encounter with the spirit is taking place there. Admittedly, a certain re-learning with regard to specific ideas is necessary. Just think how ill-suited some leaders of spiritual life today are to developing such ideas. Think about it—this has already subsided somewhat, but those who have become leaders today were, for the most part, so deeply immersed in worldly life during their student years that they learned, as it’s called, to drink themselves into a state of drowsiness: they drink so much that the necessary drowsiness sets in. Yes, this gives rise to a concept—and with it a sensation, a sum of feelings—regarding the descent into sleep, which, however, is not suited to grasping the full significance of sleep. One may well be a great scholar with regard to all that is tied to the subject matter, but to gain insight into what actually happens to a person between falling asleep and waking up—that, of course, is impossible.

[ 19 ] Thus, as people strive to think through ideas that are not bound to matter, they will develop an understanding of what I have called the first encounter—the encounter with the spirit during sleep. But this understanding must, in the not-too-distant future—if the world is not to fall into decadence—illuminate life, fill life with light. For if people do not arrive at these concepts, then by what means can they form concepts at all? They can form concepts only through the observation of external conditions, through the observation of the external world. Such concepts, however, which are gained merely through the observation of the external world, allow the inner being of the human being—the soul—to remain dormant. That which would otherwise have to exert itself in spiritual concepts remains dormant, remains unused, and atrophies. What is the consequence of this? The consequence is that human beings become blind in their entire relationship to the world—spiritually blind. By developing concepts and ideas solely under the influence of external circumstances and external impressions, one becomes spiritually blind. And spiritual blindness is precisely what characterizes the materialistic age above all else. In science, this blindness with regard to the real world is merely gradually harmful, but in practical life it is eminently damaging. You see, the further we descend into the material realm, the more things correct themselves in the materialistic age. When building a bridge, circumstances force one to form correct concepts and build it properly; otherwise, the bridge will collapse the moment the first car drives over it. When trying to cure a person, it is easier to apply incorrect concepts, for it can never be proven what caused a person to die or to recover. In such cases, it is by no means necessary that correct concepts have always been involved. In the spiritual realm, however—when one is to work in the spiritual realm—the situation is even much worse. And that is why it is particularly dire in what are commonly called the practical sciences, such as economics or the like. In the materialistic age, people have also become accustomed, with regard to economics, to basing their views on impressions and concepts formed from the external world; as a result, these concepts have become blind. Everything that is developed in economics consists, for the most part, of spiritually blind concepts. Consequently—and this must occur as a necessary consequence—people, with their blind concepts, are merely led by the nose by events; they surrender themselves to events. And when they intervene in events, that is exactly what happens!

[ 20 ] This is one way of arriving at concepts—namely, blind concepts—without engaging with the humanities. The other way to arrive at concepts is this: instead of being inspired from the outside, one allows oneself to be inspired from within—that is, one allows only that which lives in the emotions and passions to rise, as it were, into the soul. This does not, however, result in blind concepts, but rather in what might be called intoxicating concepts or intoxicating ideas. And the people of the present day who profess materialism are constantly oscillating back and forth between blind concepts and intoxicating concepts. They are blind concepts in that they actually allow themselves to be led by everything that happens, and when they intervene, they do so in the most clumsy way possible! Intoxicated concepts, in that they surrender themselves entirely to their emotions and passions and confront the world in such a way that they do not actually comprehend things, but either love everything or hate everything, judging everything solely by love or hate, by sympathy and antipathy. This is especially true in the materialistic age. For it is only by exerting one’s soul, on the one hand, to arrive at spiritual concepts, and by developing one’s feelings, on the other hand, toward the great affairs of the world, that one arrives at clear-sighted concepts and ideas. When we rise to what spiritual science tells us about the great interconnections—which the materialistic worldview scoffs at today—about the Age of Saturn, the Sun Age, the Moon Age, and our connection to the universe—and if we nourish our moral sensibilities with these great goals of humanity—then we rise above the mere emotions that manifest as sympathy and antipathy toward everything that surrounds us in the world; but only in this way.

[ 21 ] However, it is necessary that spiritual science purify much of what exists in our time. For human beings cannot completely cut themselves off from the spiritual world. They cannot cut themselves off at all; they can only appear to do so. And I have already drawn attention to the way in which he allows himself to be seemingly cut off. If, on the one hand, a person swears by matter alone and by impressions from the external world, the forces within him that are directed toward the spirit remain; it is just that he then applies the spirit in the wrong realm, indulging in all manner of illusions. That is why, fundamentally speaking, the most practical, materialistic people are the ones most prone to illusion—the people who give themselves over to the strongest illusions. We see some people going through life denying all spirituality and laughing derisively when someone mentions that another person perceives the spiritual. “Oh, he sees ghosts!” they say, and with that they’ve already broken the staff—if they can say of someone, “Oh, he sees ghosts!” They certainly don’t see ghosts, as far as they’re concerned. But they only think they don’t see ghosts, for they see ghosts constantly—truly, constantly. One can examine a person who is truly so firmly grounded in his crassly materialistic worldview and see how he succumbs to the worst possible illusions about what tomorrow might bring. This succumbing to illusions is merely a substitute for his denial of all that is spiritual. He must fall into illusions if he denies all that is spiritual; he is bound to fall into illusions. However, as I said, these illusions in the various areas of life are not easy to prove, but they are present everywhere—truly everywhere. Yet people are so inclined to indulge in illusions. For example, one can witness it all the time when someone says: “Should I invest my money in this or that venture? They’re brewing beer there, after all.” “I won’t spend my money on something like that; I won’t have anything to do with it.” — He deposits it in the bank. The bank, of course without his knowledge, invests the money in the brewery. It makes no difference—absolutely no difference—in terms of objectivity; but he is under the illusion that he is not giving his money to such base things.

[ 22 ] Now one might say: what I’m saying here is far-fetched. It is not far-fetched; it is something that governs all of life. People today do not set out to truly get to know life, to see through it. But this is of great significance. For it is immensely important to get to know the very thing in which one is truly immersed. It is not easy today, because life has become complicated; but what I have pointed out is nonetheless true. For you see, under certain circumstances, one easily notices an absurdity. I’d like to illustrate this with an example. Once, an arsonist—I’m telling a true story—was apprehended as he ran out of a house he had just set on fire. He had timed it so that he could just barely make it out. He was apprehended and held accountable. And then he said: Yes, he had done a very good deed, because it wasn’t his fault at all that the house had caught fire; rather, it was the workers who had just left the house—they had left a burning light on at dusk. If that had burned out during the night, the house would have caught fire as a result. But this way, he had set the house on fire while it was still daylight. The house would have caught fire in any case; and he had done this only to create the possibility—for if the house caught fire during the day, it would still be possible—to extinguish the fire quickly; at night it would be complicated, and the whole house would burn down, whereas during the day one could put out the fire quickly. — Then they asked him: “Well, why didn’t you turn off the light?” — He replied: “Well, I am an educator of humanity. If I had turned off the light, the workers involved would have remained careless; but this way, they see what happens when they forget to turn off the light.”

[ 23 ] People laugh at such an example because they simply fail to notice when they are constantly doing such things. Things like those done by the man who didn’t turn off the light but set the house on fire—people do such things all the time. One simply doesn’t notice it when the whole matter pertains to the spiritual world and one’s emotions and passions cloud one’s judgment and present one with delusions. If one accustoms the soul to that elasticity, to that flexibility, which is necessary to nurture spiritual ideas, then one will also develop one’s thinking in such a way that it truly finds its way through existence and adapts to it. If one avoids this, thinking will never be adapted to existence; rather, thinking will, so to speak, remain entirely untouched by existence, touched only by its surface. This is why the materialistic age—to delve deeper into the matter—truly leads people away from any connection with the spiritual world. Just as one undermines one’s physical life by not sleeping properly, so one undermines one’s soul life by not waking properly. And one does not wake properly if one merely surrenders to external impressions, if one lives without an awareness of one’s connection to the spiritual world. Just as someone who tosses and turns in sleep due to certain circumstances undermines their physical health, so too does the person who, while awake, surrenders only to the external impressions of the world—surrendering only to physical matter—undermine their spiritual health. This, however, prevents a person from having, in the right way, that encounter—that first encounter—with the spiritual world of which I have spoken. Consequently, the human being loses the possibility of being connected to the spiritual world at all—of being connected to it in the proper way—during physical existence. And this severs the connection with that world in which we are the “other time” when we are not embodied in a physical body—the connection with that world into which we ourselves enter when we pass through the gate of death.

[ 24 ] And people must once again come to understand that we are not merely here to contribute to the physical universe during our physical existence; rather, we must come to understand that we are connected to the entire world throughout our entire existence. Those who have passed through the gate of death wish to contribute to the physical world. This contribution is only seemingly a physical one, for everything physical is merely an outward expression of the spirit. The materialistic age has alienated people from the world of the dead; spiritual science must reconcile people with the world of the dead once again. A time must come again when we do not make it impossible for the dead to do their work here for the spiritualization of the physical world by alienating ourselves from them. For the dead cannot touch things here in the physical world with their hands or perform physical work directly. That would be a nonsensical belief. The dead can work in a spiritual way. To do so, however, they need the tools available to them; to do so, they need the spiritual beings who live here in the physical world. We are not only human beings, but we are also, at the same time, tools—tools for the spirits who have passed through the gate of death. As long as we are embodied in the physical body, we make use of the pen, the hammer, or the axe; when we are no longer embodied in the physical body, our tools are the human souls themselves. And this is based, of course, on the peculiar way the dead perceive things, which I would like to mention here once again. I have mentioned it here before. You see, suppose you have in front of you—well, something, a little container of salt; you see that. You see the salt as white grains, as white powder. The fact that you see the salt as white powder depends on your eye. The spirit cannot see the salt as white powder; but when you put the salt on your tongue and taste it—experiencing that distinctive salty taste—then the possibility of perception begins for the spirit. Every spirit can perceive your taste of the salt. Everything that takes place within a human being through the external world can be perceived by every spirit, including the human soul that has passed through the gate of death. Just as nature reaches up to us to the point where we taste, smell, see, and hear it, so the world of the dead reaches down into what we hear, see, taste, and so on. What we experience in the physical world, the dead experience as well; but the point is that it belongs not only to our world but also to theirs. It belongs to their world when we spiritualize what we receive from the external world through spiritual concepts. Otherwise, what we experience merely as the effect of matter will be, for the dead, something incomprehensible and obscure. A soul that is estranged from the spiritual is, for the dead, a dark soul. As a result, during the materialistic era, an estrangement of the dead from our earthly life has come about. This estrangement must in turn be overcome. A heartfelt coexistence between the so-called dead and the so-called living must take place. But this will only be possible if people develop those forces in the soul that are active and spiritual—that is, if they develop the concepts, notions, and ideas that deal with the spiritual. By striving to reach the spiritual in thought, human beings will also gradually come to the spiritual in reality. This means that a bridge will be built between the physical and the spiritual worlds. And this alone can lead us out of the age of materialism and into those ages in which human beings will once again face reality neither blindly nor in a state of intoxication, but with clear vision and serenity. They will be clear-sighted and serene because they have gained insight through the spirit, and because, through those sensations and feelings that concern the great affairs of the world, they will attain the proper balance between sympathy and antipathy—even with regard to everything that our immediate surroundings demand of us.

[ 25 ] We will pick up on these topics next time and further deepen our understanding of the spiritual world, particularly from this perspective.